the name U as foUows : J M^ >JJ ^ ("^^
Bel-iarra-usur, 'may Bel protect the king.' He was thus tlie prince-regent of the throne. The authority for these statements is the following (in Rawlinson's W. Asiatic Inscr. i. 68, col. ii. line 24 f . ) : 'and as for Bel-5arra-u?ur, the exalted son, the offspring of my body, do thou cause the adoration of tny great divinity to exist in his heart ; may he not give way to sin; may he be satisfied with life's abundance.' There is no evidence that he waa related as grandson (cf. Dn 5") to the old monarch and creator of the new Bab. empire. According to the inscr. Nabonidus was son of Nabfl- balat-su-ikbL Rawlinson conjectures (Herodot. Essay viii. § 25) that B. may have been related to Nebuchadrezzar through his mother (Dn 5"), the wide-awake counsellor on that last fateful night. Schrader's theory ( cor ii. 132 f.), that 'father' is used here in the broad signification of predecessor and ruler in the crowning period of Bab. history, is more plausible. Such usage is held by some to be paralleled by 'Jehu, son of Omri' (Layard's Inscr. p. 982; Rawl. WAI\o\. iii. p. 5), when Jehu was the extirpator of Omri's dynasty. (See on other Bide Sayce, HCM 625 If. ) It is then just possible that the writer of Dn intended only to designate B. as a successor of king Nebuchadrezzar on the throne. It appears from at least three contract tablets (Strassmaier, Bab. Texte : Inschriften von Nabonidus, vols. i. and iii., and Tablets, Nos. 184, 581, and 688 ; a tr. by Sayce in RP, new ser. iii. 124-126) that B. was a man of some property, and was obliged to transact business on legal principles. On one tablet we find that 'the secretary of B., the son of the king,' Nebo-yukin-akhi, leases a house for a term of three years, for one and one- half manehs of silver, sub-letting of the house being forbidden, as well as interest on the money. Dated, '5th year of Nabonidus king of Bab.,' i.e. B.C. 551. On the second tablet facts of ereater interest appear : 'The sum of 20 manehs of silver for wool, the property of B., the son of the kinf;, which has been Landed over to Iddin-Merodach . . . through the agency of Nebo-?abit the steward of the house of B., the son of the king, and the secretaries of the son of the king . . . The house of . . . the Persian and aU his property In town and country shall be the security of B., the son of the king, until he shall pay in full the money aforesaid.' Dated, ' llth year of Nabonidus king' [of Bab.], i.e. B.C. 545. On the third tablet, a steward, Nebo-?abit-ida, of the house of B., had lent through a loans-broker a sum of money, and taken as security the crops to be grown near Babylon. Dated at ' Babylon, the 27th day of the second Adar, the 12th year of Nabonidus, Idng of Babylon,] i.e. B.C. 544.
There is now ample evidence that this 'son of the king' held a hiL'h office under his father-king. On an annalistic tablet of Nabonidus (cf. Pinches in TSBA vii. 153 If.), the prince-regent, in the 7th year of his father's reign, was with the army in Akkad with the chief men of the kingdom, the king himself being in Tema. This describes the ■ame condition of things in the 9th, 10th, and 1 1th
years. In the 17th year Cyrus led his forces across the boundary lines of Babylonia. Nabonidus, with the army stationed in Akkad, attempted to defend Sippar against the invader. But on the 14th of Tammuz the city fell, without a stroke, into the hands of Cyrus, and Nabonidus fled. On the 16th the general of the army of Cyrus, Gobryas, entered Babylon 'without fighting. Neither during nor after the battle at Sippar do we find the name of B. on the somewhat mutilated and broken in- scriptions within our reach. By some (e.g. Schrader) he IS thought to have perished in a battle at Akkad ; ace. to others (as Pinches and Hommel), he was slain in the final taking of Babylon.
LiTKRATDRE. — Add to the refl. in the article, Schrader, COT* ii. 130, I3o ; Sayce, Freih Light Jrmn the Aticient MonuinenU, p. 158, and UCM pp. 497, 625 ff.; Evetta, A'cio Liijht on Ihe Bible and the Holy Land, p. 2989.; Farrar, Daniei, p. 203 ff.; and WhitehouBe and others in Expos. Tim^, iv. 400, T. 41, 69, 180, 286, S82, 474. See also art. BABnx>iiU, p. 2'29(i.
Ira M. Prick.
BELTESHAZZAR (-ixkpp^s, 'RaXTaadp), the Chal- dfean name given to Daniel (Dn 1' 2^ 5'-). Opinions ditl'er as to whether the first part of the compound contains the name of Bel (male) or of Beltis or Bilat (female). The latter view is supported by Sir H. Kawlinson and Sayce, the former by Canon Raw- linson (Ancient Monarchies, iii. 82). Those who derive the word from Bel have explained it in dili'erent ways. (1) It is asserted that Bel is here a genitive form, and that zar=sar (ii?) = prince : 'the prince whom Bel favours' (Ges.). (2) The word IS regarded as a contraction for Bel-balAtsu- u«<r='Bel protect his life' (Fried. Delitzsch). (3) It is derived from Bel, tisha (Heb. nf'"? 'a secret') and twur (ns:) = to guard — the composition of the elements giving a meaning which might be considered appropriate in the case of Daniel.